Happy Halloween

I love Halloween -- it's just plain fun! I don't go much for blood and gore, but I kind of like the creepy, ghost-story-ness dress-up drama of it all. So, from our house to yours, I share my oldest daughter's jack o' lantern. Cool, huh? She draws the neatest dragons -- I wouldn't have believed it could be done on a pumpkin too!



In the spirit of the evening, the girls and I watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and waited for Trick-or-Treaters. (We actually got some this year!) I took the opportunity to finish up my charms for the FDA swap. I can't wait to get mine -- they are destined to be featured on my "Charmed One" doll I posted a month or so ago.


They are made of 4" squares of Tyvek which was zapped with a heat gun then pressed between 2 rubber stamps. They were then threaded on eye pins and accented with crystal drop dangles. I had to stabilize a few of the pins with glue. When I disguised the glue with glitter, I liked the effect so much I added glue to all of them. I wish the glitter showed up a little bit better -- I mixed up a bit of gold and a bit of green Art Glitter which made a beautiful rich blend.

Can you tell I like sparklies?

Finally, I want to share this sequence of photos I shot over a span of about 10 minutes from my front yard earlier this week. This month's full moon rise over Mt. Hood was simply breath taking.




I hope your Fright Night was delightful!

Bits and Pieces

I meant to post these over the weekend, but my body told me I needed rest, so I have done nothing much more than nap and read since I came home from work on Friday. It did me good -- I am feeling like myself again today.

This is the doll I received in my "goth swap" from Kate Erbach. Isn't she wonderfully weird and adorable? I notice cool things about her almost every time I look at her, like the sheer skull fabric of her skirt, the neat lacing of her faux leather overskirt, and her little pet on her shoulder. I tried to get a good photograph of the skeleton dangling from her left hand, but I guess he is shy. He kept turning away from the camera... Thank you Kate -- you have restored my faith in swapping!

It is finally cool enough in my upstairs clay room to play with my clays without having them melt in my hands, so I have been diddling around with some techniques I learned from Christi Friesen's books. These ornaments (which are much more green than they appear -- very Christmas-y!) were inspired by a discussion on FabricDollArt on the Victorian style of Christmas ornaments. I don't much like Victorian -- too fussy -- but I like these. Thanks ladies!

Beadwork Magazine has put out a special issue called Step-by-Step Jewelry, which includes another tutorial by Christi for these Turtledoves. They look small in the photo -- the one on the right is actually nearly 5" long. They were SO much fun to make!

And speaking of fun to make, this little guy is made out of glow-in-the-dark clay. He was inspired by the work of Pat Graham, "dancingbuffalo" on eBay. I have never yet been able to win an auction for one of her pieces, so gave it a shot myself. He turned out pretty cute, but he did freak me out the first time I saw him dangling from the necklace rack in my room in the middle of the night. He really DOES glow, and brightly too.

I have been doing a lot more spinning since I began working. It is such an easy thing to just sit down and begin to spin. No set-up and no clean-up involved. I am going to have to think of something to do with all the yarn -- I am running out of places to put it!

This beautiful stuff is special though. It is a silk/merino blend in exactly the colors of the inside of a pink seashell. By the time I finish spinning the bump I have, I ought to have enough yardage to knit something fine and lacy. In the meantime, I just like to touch it!

Eye Candy!

She is home at last! About a year and a half ago, I joined a round robin project with a group of my internet friends. We each made a torso with a head, chose a color scheme, began a travel journal, and sent the whole thing off on a "Colorful Adventure".

I purposely picked colors about as different from what I am used to playing with as I could get: black and silver, with accent colors of orange and verdigris. Verrrry cool, but a challenge to work with. (Each of the artists who worked on her mentioned in the journal how outside-the-box the color scheme was for them. Hee hee!)

"Flabbergasted" about covers how I felt as I opened the box. I see more every time I look at her.

But wait! There's more! She came home with a journal of her travels. Each page is a beautiful piece of art in itself.

I made the cover and the introductory pages using my chosen color scheme. I may have mentioned it before, but Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold is now one of my favorite colors of paint. Transparent, yet rich, almost good enough to eat!

Here is a little sample of the pages inside.

Amazing!

I feel so incredibly blessed by the wonderful, generous women who poured so much skill and effort into making such INCREDIBLE art for me. Thank you all!!

It's That Time of Year Again...

...when things go bump in the night. Usually it's just the wind, or maybe a barn door that isn't quite closed. This time the noise was on the front porch, directly under my bedroom window. I *told* Jake I wasn't imagining things, and I wasn't.

When we got up the next morning, the most pitiful mewing sound was coming from ... somewhere. I thought one of our cats had been shut in a closet (it has happened before) and spent quite a few minutes looking for the source of the sound. Eventually it occured to me to look out the window, and then my heart did a flip-flop. There were 3 little kittens sitting on the rocking chair on the porch.

OH! I get so mad when people dump cats off on our farm. Usually it's an older cat that has outgrown its cuteness. At least they have a chance of surviving. These babies are only about 8 weeks old. They are quite clean and rather chubby so I know they have been well cared for so far, but how on earth does ANYONE think that teeny-tinies like these have a hope of a prayer of surviving on their own?

I want to grab these people and shake them and scream "Do NOT count on the Nice Farmer to take them in. He already has 5 housepets and has threatened to leave home if wife or daughters bring home any more!" Sigh...

We caught these 2 right away -- the black one is a charmer who likes people, and the gray one was just too hungry to care -- and relocated them to the calf house along with a bowl of cat food. It's warm and dry in there, and the guys can usually be counted on to leave the leftover calf milk behind for the barn cats.


It was a challenge to catch the third one, but eventually she got hungry enough to come to the food we left out and so we took her to join her littermates. She was unwilling to have her portrait taken, but my camera caught her anyway. See her under the stall floor way back against the wall? Poor baby... I don't blame her for being frightened.

I saw these beautiful spiderwebs under one of my birdfeeders, and just for the heck of it, because I had the camera out already, I played with some more of the settings on my camera. I snapped over a dozen photos, but these 2 were the only ones that turned out. (Note to self: put a dark background behind misty spiderwebs.)



I wish I could make art like this!!

Long week, short post

After a week spent sniffling, sneezing, and basically denying the obvious, I finally went home sick from work on Friday. Gotta love the start of cold/flu season. Sigh... at least I got it over with early, and hopefully for the WHOLE season.

If nothing else, the forced inactivity gave me the opportunity to do some handwork on a swap doll I want to finish this week. Meet "Tanith Ravyn", adapted from Patti Culea's pattern in her book "Creative Cloth Doll Beading."

It took me several tries to get a face I was happy with. I still think this girl's eyes are a bit too big and too far apart, but Jake is crazy about her. I didn't think he would like her at all, but he surprised me. He is a bit upset with me actually for sending her away. I guess I will just have to make another one in the same style for him.

She still needs shoes, but she'll be ready for the mail this week.

That's about all I have the energy for now. I HATE colds!

Even though I haven't been posting, I continue to create. There is just so much going on this time of year on a farm that I haven't had time to sit down at the computer and play with my blog.


In order to prove that, yes there IS a Klimt doll-in progress, I decided to post photos of her as she is at the moment. She is coming along, and I am SO happy with the way her costume is developing. I am less pleased with her wig -- I think the Tibetan lamb is just too fine in scale for a doll of this size. Unless I change my mind, the lamb will become the wig for the severed head, and I will make another wig for her, probably from a fine mohair yarn.





Her beaded collar fits perfectly, and I love the way the bugle beads on the "band" of her belt disguise the raw edges of the fabric. I didn't want to do an exact copy of the jewelry in the painting -- I doubt I could if I HAD wanted to -- but the effect is really good. She needs an armband yet and something on her feet and she's done. Except for the severed head...

I am a little burned out on her at the moment, so I am taking a break to play with a Halloween themed doll.



I wonder if Jean Bernard would recognize this face as being from her lovely and serene "Mother" mold??



This eeny teeny hand is from Sherry Goshon's "Cinnamon" pattern. It took me 5 tries to get 2 decent hands. I don't know if I will attempt anything that small ever EVER again!

I have to go back to work today, and there is still a huge pile of ripe tomatoes on the counter in the kitchen. I'll be back though.

John Denver didn't have a CLUE what he was talking about!

Remember the 70's song "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" that starts out "Well, life on the farm is kinda laid back..."? I am here to tell you right now, that that statement is total CRAP! Behold, our feedwagon...

It SHOULD be upright, attached to a nice little Ford tractor, and moving back and forth through the barns feeding our cows. Except that it has a broken axle, and our faithful repair guys don't have a replacement part. Here's hoping that it comes in SOON!


Take a close look at this photo... see what the men used for a jack? That is a stump of a walnut tree we cut down 8 years ago because it was rotten. I have no idea why that stump is still hanging around, but thank Heaven it was. When you need a prop fast, you grab what's at hand and what works. It makes a good photo too, if you're into farming horror stories...

On a brighter note, my tomatoes are ripening in a Biblical flood right now, and we will have lots of soup this winter! I also have a nice crop of basil that I am putting up as pesto and freezing. Oh, if you could just smell the aromas in my kitchen right now...



TA DA!

I finished Nancy Anne. The Fine Crackle I used on her created a subtle and beautiful antique effect that I am really really pleased with. It makes the whole doll. I wish I had been able to find a fabric for her dress that looked a little more old-fashioned, but bright colors are what's "In" right now, so I did the best I could with what I could find. It's a very pretty fabric, but the scale is a little large I think... I also think she's beautiful, but I am SOooooo sick of her. Poor thing... I don't want to have anything more to do with her for a very long time indeed, LOL!

And, just because I was outside, and the camera was outside with me and it is a fabulously beautiful day in spite of its challenges, I decided to play with the macro setting on my camera. WHAT FUN! Special thanks to Sue K. and Judi W. who actually inspired me to read the complicated parts of my camera manual!!!

I discovered that it's difficult to focus precisely with macro -- what I see in the window is not necessarily what will show in the photo. Also, flowers blowing in the breeze are not the easiest subjects. I took nearly 30 shots, and got 2 worth keeping, which isn't so bad as it's all digital. I love this freedom to play!! I managed to catch my bees feasting in my flowers. Don't they look like they are enjoying themselves?

They especially like my "Graham Thomas" rose bush...

and the thai basil. Heck, *I* like the thai basil too!

"Charmed One" is finished

In celebration of the last official day of summer, the girls had their 2 best friends over for an afternoon of frivolity and eating. Oh my, I would feel young again if I weren't so TIRED, LOL! I didn't think I could get a chance to get a doll done today -- I had a zillion other things to do -- but this evening I just sat down and DID it. The girls popped in some "Miss Marple" DVD's, so I took the opportunity to listen in on their conversations and get some hand work accomplished. I still have some clean up to do in the kitchen and the laundry has gotten behind, but she is DONE.



I am thinking in my mind that I would like to do a beaded fringe under the ruching at her neckline, but then I think back to all the beading I did on my Klimt doll and I tell myself not to be absurd. Maybe some other day... in the meantime, she is DONE.

I had hoped to use her to display my own personal charm bracelet, but as you can see it is broken, though none of the charms are missing. I wonder when that happened...

I also managed to apply the crackle finish to "Nancy Anne". Now I need to hunt down my satin finish varnish and seal her, then she will be ready to dress. I WILL finish 2 dolls this week... if I can find that darned varnish!

WIP's updated

I've been grabbing every available moment to work on these dolls... this one has 2 layers of gesso, and 2 layers of paint, each of which needed to dry and be sanded before the next could be added. That takes time! Fortunately, each layer went on pretty quickly, and I have plenty of opportunity to let things dry undisturbed now that I am working. sigh...

I just did her face today. One last step yet... I have decided to give her a crackle finish. We are going to the State Fair with the girls this afternoon though, so I will do that tonight when we get home. I wanted to get this "before" shot up before I added the crackle though, so I can observe the change without having to rely on memory.

Her name is "Nancy Anne" in memory of my mother. Mom would have loved this doll.

"Simply Charming" is coming along as well. I had to make an emergency run to Michael's for another tube of Texture Magic for her hair, but I am satisfied with the way it looks now. It was just too skimpy before. I don't know if you can see them in the photo, but I have embedded little flat backed Swarovski crystals in her curls. The effect is very charming...

I had made her a set of sleeves before, but they were too skimpy, so I took them off. I don't dare touch her now though until her hair is completely dry -- I've already squished one of her curls... Another set is in the works and ready to add, and then all I need to do is add the embellishments to her base and give her some charms to display and she will be done.

Could it be possible... will I *really* be able to finish TWO dolls in one week??? we shall see. Stay tuned!

Just Chillin...

One of the things I must constantly defend about our lives as professional farmers is the fact that we are tied to the land we work. It is a very big deal to arrange to for the care of the animals and the continued smooth operation of the dairy without Jake in charge. For the most part, we are content to stay put. I have worked hard to make the place where I must be also be the place I WANT to be. Hence... my studio! Oh, don't I have fun in there!

It is still a treat to go away for a little while though, and Lincoln City, OR is one of our favorite places. We got to spend a few nights there this past weekend. The days were sunny and beautiful the whole time we were there (a rare thing, believe me!) so we took advantage of every moment we could get to hang out on the beach.


I tried to take some portrait shots of the girls, but it took a moment to get them to settle down and quit clowning... Unfortunately, I didn't notice that by then my camera lens had fogged over from the change in temperature and humidity, so this is the only decent shot I got. It serves Alice right for being such a goof that I had to post *this* photo of her, LOL!



The wind is always blowing on the NW Coast, and Lincoln City's beach is famous for its kites. This display is maintained by one of the condo/hotels there, and I could watch it all day.



This dragon kite was my favorite! Isn't it the coolest? We actually went into the kite shops looking for one like it, but didn't see another.





Lydia and Jake tested the water... personally, I think they are nuts! Way too cold for me, but they must have been out there for a good 10 minutes before even they decided that the warm sand was a much more appealing option.




I just happened to have my camera in hand as this seagull swooped by. I don't know what made me snap, but I'm glad I did. Sometimes I take a good shot in spite of myself, LOL!





Jake and Alice insisted that I give up the camera and get in a shot... as a rule I HATE having my picture taken, but we were all having too good a time to argue, so I figured "what the heck" and let Alice have it. So here I am. I did NOT hold my sun hat that way on purpose, but it sure does disguise a multitude of flaws!

I am so sorry to see this summer end, but at least we got to see it out with a bang. I hope to have updated photos of my dolls in progress by the end of the weekend as well.

Happy Last Days of Summer everyone!

Nothing finished... Yet!

I would give just about *anything* to have a photo of a finished project to share, but I don't... yet! On the other hand, I have made some good progress on 3 alternating dolls this week, and so will have something to show for my efforts soon. Each of these little babies has a lot of drying time involved in their processes, so I feel justified in breaking my promise to myself to work on only one thing at a time for the sake of effeciency.

Yeah, right. I do believe that I am incapable of that kind of concentrated effort anyway, LOL!

This little lady is "Charmed One", from an online class by Sherry Goshon. She is a very clever design, intended to display a charm collection, and I am having pure fun making her. I am enchanted by Sherry's face designs -- doesn't she have the most wonderful expression? I wish I could say that I *intended* the paint job on her body to turn out the way it did, but I have to confess that Serendipity played a big part. The background paints flew on almost by themselves, and the bottom "flame-y" part is a scrap of silk fusion I happened to have lying around that just happened to blend perfectly. I trimmed it to fit, stuck it on with some Mod-Podge, and it was Meant To Be -- I LOVE it.

I intend to give her arms and sleeves yet this afternoon, but I have to let the fixative I used on her face dry yet, so I thought I'd post a quick blog spot while I wait. I see by looking a the photo that the box I used for her base needs some attention too, so it's just as well I took a little break.





As for this doll, if she EVER gets finished, it will be a miracle. "Lavinia Mae" is a pattern by Shari Lutz, designed to resemble an Izannah Walker doll of the early 19th century. She was originally intended to be a gift for my mother, but now I just want to get her off of my UFO pile!

I began her years and years ago when she came out as a pattern in "Cloth Doll" magazine. First I had to wait 6 months for the parts to make her head to be backordered. Then I lost the issue with the instructions to put the head together. By the time I found it, I had misplaced the parts for the head.

Once I had finished creating the head, I had misplaced the pattern pieces to create the body. By the time I had made the body, I had once again lost the head. This week I finally managed to get all parts, instructions, and ME into the studio at the same time and got her assembled. Now I have run out of gesso, and so can't prime her arms until I can make a run to the city to get some more.

See what I mean?

I am still working on the Klimt doll as well, but the beadwork is going slowly. Her neckpiece IS finally finished however, and once I finish her belt, the rest of her costume will fly together pretty quickly. In the meantime, it's still just one bead at a time. We'll get there eventually!

Who knew that there is an entire online community dedicated to collecting Jurassic Park toys?! My oldest daughter has been in love with dinosaurs practically since birth, and began collecting these figures when she started finding them in the toy aisle at Goodwill. Her latest thing is doing what her group calls Customs.


The blue gray dinosaur, an "Aqua Spino" (be sure you want an answer before you ask!) is a working toy from her collection. The other, a non-functioning duplicate, is her first attempt at a Custom.





She used craft acrylics and her own imagination to create "Lava Spino", the first in a planned series of "Elementals by Raptorgrll", dinosaurs with genetic mutations that allowed them to survive the natural disasters that wiped out the rest of their species'.

I think they are pretty cool!

As for me, I am still working on stabilizing the cover and end papers of my "Poe" book. I am also beading a collar and a belt that will anchor my Klimt doll's costume. Hopefully there will be photos sometime before too long!

Elfin Challenge doll

The voting is over and the challenge is done, so I can share my Elfin here at last. I didn't win anything, but that's OK, because this is easily one of the most charming dolls I have ever made and she's all MINE. Here's the little story I had to include to enter her in the Challenge:

May I introduce you to “Levaine”? She is a Sourdough Elf, though she prefers to
be known as a “Tamer of Wild Yeast” instead. I like to humor her because she is
a nice little creature and it’s a small thing to make her happy. She lives
behind the baking books on my kitchen bookshelf, and as long as I keep her
supplied with plenty of fresh butter and aged cheddar cheese, my bread bakes up
light, fragrant, and delicious.

If I have forgotten the proper offerings however, my dough won’t rise and my bread is flat and heavy. Needless to say, she has me well-trained!

It's too bad I didn't take any photos of her "in progress". I modified the pattern to create what I think is a really wonderful 3D body with "mature" breasts, a poochy tummy, and a very cute round bottom. I was shocked by the shape her face took on as I stuffed the 4-piece head, as it is NOT what I thought I was drafting at all. I kept it though, because it turned out to be one of those Happy Accidents that keep things interesting while creating.

My favorite part was doing her skin coloring. I don't know what made me do it... on a whim I grabbed a brush and my watercolors and just started painting her as if she were a piece of paper. The colors flowed into eachother beautifully and created a different kind of subtly mottled shading that made a very interesting skin texture. Pretty cool, and I look forward to playing with that technique again.

This weekend I'm working on a round robin cookbook, and then I have another round robin doll to contribute to. It's always something around here. Thank goodness!

Painting again

It has been too long since I posted, but there is so much going on here this summer -- not much of it blog-worthy either I'm afraid -- that it hasn't really been on my radar to sit down and write. It feels good to be doing it today. Besides, it is time to come up for air now that I have finished reading the last "Harry Potter" book.

I have been doing what my friend Sue calls "committing a neatness" in my studio, so that I can work in there again. My poor cutting table is literally buried in the debris on ongoing projects, oh my! So in the meantime, because I just can't NOT be creating, even if only for a few minutes a day, I have once again picked up brushes and begun painting. I had so much fun with the little strawberry sketch that I did for a round robin cookbook that I decided to do some more. These little dragons are destined to be cut out and used as page accents for the book I am working on right now. Look, no mud! I think I might finally be getting the hang of watercolor.














This little blueberry sketch was supposed to be "next" in the cookbook project, but fortunately I discovered that the owner of the book despises blueberries BEFORE I added the recipe to her collection. It's all good though... it just means that I have a headstart on the next book. I will be rather sorry to see this exchange end -- it is easily the most fun and relaxed I've ever participated in.

Oh, and look what I found! The Library where I work is going to have a big used book sale next month, and I have been helping sort the donations. This treasure came in and I HAD to have it! (NOT cheating... we have a pre-sale cart set up already, so these books ARE for sale to the public. I just got there first, LOL!) I know it's in terrible sad shape, but it is still so pretty. It called to me... really it did! I have NO experience with altering books, but I am going to give it a try.